‘Avatar: The Last Airbender’: New Trailer For Highly Anticipated Adaptation Of The Cult Classic Soars - Trailer
Photo from Consequence
From Ryan Cordaro
Believe it or not, Avatar: The Last Airbender has been a huge blindspot of mine for years now. It’s not that I’ve been trying to avoid the original animated series, but I’ve never gotten around to it. It may have to do with watching M. Night Shyamalan’s shunned live-action adaptation (to put it lightly) before the series, but I’m open to watching it at some point and adding it to my massive series backlog. I suppose I’m not the only one, though, because Netflix is now trying another live-action adaptation. It’s worth noting that while series creators Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko were attached as executive producers when the show was announced, they ended up leaving the show during its development, citing creative differences. Since then, DiMartino and Konietzko have become the heads of Avatar Studios, with three animated films expanding the franchise in the works over at Paramount.
This new series will focus on adapting the first season of the original series, dubbed “Book One: Water.” In war-torn lands, certain people can bend one of four elements: water, earth, fire, or air. When a young airbender is woken up after being frozen in ice for hundreds of years, he is an Avatar, who is now responsible for balancing world and nature to bring peace to the land. He and his new friends must now take on the militaristic Fire Nation, who are hellbent on taking over the world. There’s a lot of lore here, but I tried my best to condense it down for the sake of a streamlined paragraph.
The main cast of the new series includes Gordon Cormier (The Stand, Lost in Space), Dallas Liu (PEN15, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings), Kiawentiio (Anne with an E, What If…?), Ian Ousley (Physical, 13 Reasons Why), Paul Sun-Hyung Lee (the Star Wars franchise, Kim’s Convenience), Yvonne Chapman (Kung Fu, Family Law), Elizabeth Yu (May December), Maria Zhang, Casey Camp-Horinek (Reservation Dogs), and Daniel Dae Kim (Lost, The Good Doctor). Other cast members include Ken Leung (Old, Saw), Maria Zhang (), Amber Midthunder (Prey, Dream Scenario), Danny Pudi (Community, Mythic Quest), Utkarsh Ambudkar (Free Guy, tick, tick… BOOM!), Arden Cho (Teen Wolf, Chicago Med), François Chau (The Expanse, Barry), and George Takei (the Star Trek franchise, Blue Eye Samurai), who reprises his role from the animated series.
The first season of Avatar: The Last Airbender hits Netflix on February 22nd, 2024.
